Mr R Gibson For the v Mr P Sangha — 2018

The claimant, Mr Martin James Scott, was employed by Kenton School from 1 September 2009 as Head of Modern Foreign Languages. The tribunal found that concerns about his performance had been raised from 2013 onwards, that he had been placed on support plans, and that in May 2016 he was referred to Occupational Health, which recorded moderate depression and severe anxiety. The tribunal accepted that the claimant had an impairment of mixed anxiety and depression that had a substantial and long-term adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities and that he was disabled at the material time.

The central misconduct allegation concerned Spanish controlled assessments. The tribunal found that in June 2016 the claimant allowed pupils to copy work produced by another teacher, then marked the work and entered the results on the department tracker. It accepted that he knew the conduct was wrong and that, when interviewed in December 2016, he said he had crossed a moral line. After investigation and a disciplinary hearing in July 2017, Sarah Holmes-Carne dismissed him for gross misconduct. The appeal on 10 October 2017 was rejected on 13 October 2017.

On reasonable adjustments, the tribunal accepted that the respondent applied a PCP requiring compliance with its disciplinary procedure and teaching standards, but found no substantial disadvantage in comparison with non-disabled staff. It found the claimant was able to continue performing his teaching role satisfactorily and that he had already received a reasonable level of support. On the section 15 claim, the tribunal held that dismissal was unfavourable treatment but was not proved to be because of something arising in consequence of the claimant's disability. It distinguished City of York Council v Grossett on the basis that this case involved a series of deliberate acts connected with exam malpractice, not a single error of judgment caused by stress.

The whistleblowing claim also failed. The tribunal held that the claimant's 8 May 2017 statement and his meetings with David Pearmain and Andrew Clark in May 2017 did not contain protected disclosures because they were generalised allegations of malpractice rather than disclosure of information tending to show breach of legal obligation. It found that the disciplinary process had already begun in relation to the claimant's own conduct and that, in any event, dismissal was because of misconduct. The ordinary unfair dismissal claim was dismissed because the respondent had a potentially fair reason of conduct, carried out a reasonable investigation, and was entitled to conclude that dismissal for gross misconduct was within the band of reasonable responses.